One of the joys of having attended Woodstock School is that I know people all over the world. Which is also one of the sorrows: when something bad happens almost anywhere in the world, it’s likely to affect someone of my extended Woodstock family.
I wrote almost two years ago about an Indian schoolmate who survived both Gulf Wars in Baghdad, with her Iraqi husband. In April of 2004, Shahnaz died of a galloping cancer. Had Iraq not been under embargo for so many years, effectively shutting down medical facilities for ordinary people, she would have had access to decent medical care, and perhaps her cancer could have been diagnosed and treated in time. As it is, she is one of tens of thousands of innocent victims. The difference is that, to me, she is no abstract figure. She’s Shahnaz, and she’s gone.
And now the tsunami. As class secretary, I have sent out email to all my classmates, and am waiting for news from the larger alumni family as well. But it’s too early to know for sure whether we’re all okay; the nosecount could take a long time. So far the classmates who have checked in are all right, though one was awaiting news of her father’s family in Madras.
Like most people in Italy, we don’t go out for dinner as much as we used to. We love to eat out, and there are many great restaurants in Italy, but who can afford them anymore?
It started with the euro. The official conversion rate was 1936.27 lire to the euro. In other words, a pizza that used to cost 8,000 lire, if converted correctly, should cost slightly over 4 euros. In practice, many restaurants just lopped off three zeros, so a pizza that used to cost 8,000 lire now costs 8 euros. It almost seems reasonable at first glance, til you realize that you are now paying almost 16,000 lire for a pizza, which no one would have dreamed of doing pre-euro.
In Milan a few weeks ago, we ate at a restaurant that we had frequented for years, and considered good quality at a medium price. This assessment proved to be sadly out of date. Between the three of us, we had three primi (first courses), two secondi (second courses), one dessert, four ¾ litre bottles of water, ½ litre of wine, and one coffee. The primi (first courses) were good, the secondi decidedly less so: Enrico’s bollito misto (boiled meats) was unimpressive – I can buy better mostarda myself! – and my agnello al scottadito (grilled lamb ribs) seemed almost fried rather than grilled, certainly not tender as they should be. And the bill was 98 euros! Definitely not worth the price.
We saw only two or three other tables of patrons while we were there, and the chef spent most of the evening standing around in the hall. Not a good sign, but no more than he deserved for charging us an arm and a leg for a sub-par meal. Until recently, some restaurants might have imagined they could rely on the less-discerning palates of tourists, but, with the dollar in free-fall, many Americans can no longer afford to come to Italy at all, or at least need to eat more cheaply while they’re here. Italian restaurateurs need to rethink their pricing and quality before they go out of business in droves.
On January 10th, a much-delayed law banning smoking in public places goes into effect in Italy. It requires public spaces (restaurants, clubs, discos, offices, bingo parlors) to either wall off smokers in separate rooms, or to ensure adequate ventilation (a high volume of air exchange with a filtration system), or to forbid smoking altogether. Individuals caught breaking the ban would be fined, and restaurant etc. owners are expected to “play sheriff”, risking fines from 220 to 2200 euros if they do not.
The January 10th date already represents a compromise to allow owners to get through the holiday season (which ends with the Epiphany on January 6th), but many are gearing up to do battle against various aspects of the law, especially that requiring them to rat on their clients.
Some observers assume that this law, like so many others, will be routinely flouted in Italy. From what I’ve seen so far, I think that will depend on the attitude of individual owners. Those who are militant smokers themselves and/or cherish their smoking clientele will get away with as much as they can, while others, as I have observed before, have already banned smoking from their premises, and seem happy to have done so. They may already be discovering that, while they may lose a few clients among the fumatori accaniti (dedicated smokers), they make at least compensating gains among the non-smokers.
Smokers feel besieged the world over, as evidenced by the howls of outrage every time another country or city banishes them to the sidewalks. Having been a besieged non-smoker all my life, I feel no sympathy. For some of us, sinus and bronchitis sufferers like myself or, worse, asthmatics, any amount of smoke is a threat to health and even life. We have been effectively banned from many places and events by smoke. I greatly enjoyed an evening country dancing country-western with my DC roommate at a local club years ago, but had to leave because I was choking.
I likewise enjoyed the music and ambience at one of Milan’s jazz clubs, but have never returned since my first smoky night there years ago. Maybe now I can.
So, smokers, don’t begrudge us smoke-sufferers the opportunity to join in the fun. You always have the choice to step outside for a smoke; stepping outside to breathe isn’t much of an option for us.
^ Of course, some people in Italy actually do sing opera for fun (and/or for a living).
To bring people to my site, I hang out in online forums about traveling and living in Italy, answering questions where I usefully can. It’s been an education for me as well, in American attitudes towards Italy.
One young woman bemoaned the fact that in her travels in Italy, and especially in Rome, she had not found the “real” Italy that she expected. Her vision of the real Italy apparently included (only) beautiful people beautifully dressed, spotless streets, and women who make pasta from scratch every day while singing along to Verdi and Puccini. She was sadly bewildered to find Rome full of immigrants (“Bulgarians and Chinamen,” as she phrased it), rude people, and young people kissing on park benches (she was of the opinion that this sort of behavior should be heavily fined – really, what planet was she from?).
Come to any country looking for a stereotype, and you’re bound to be disappointed, especially when your picture is based on the rose-colored memories of emigrant grandparents, or the more recent “live the good life in Italy” stereotype created by well-heeled foreigners who move to Tuscany, renovate a villa, and then write a book about it.
A recent post on Zoomata.com bewailed the removal of crucifixes from Italian classrooms (due to a court challenge by the Finnish mother of an Italian child); another on Fodors.com was upset over a bit of news reported in the US, that in Treviso a school’s nativity play was replaced with “Little Red Riding Hood.” Said the Fodor’s poster: “I love Italy. I thought I knew Italians, being American Italian myself.”
These two people, a Canadian and an American, both mourn Italy’s “becoming” secular rather than remaining Catholic. As second- or third-generation emigrants, they have skipped over several generations of Italian history, and apparently don’t realize that the separation of church and state in Italy was established in the Constitution (strongly modeled on the American one) in the early 1950s.
The Catholic Church still has influence in Italian life and politics, but that influence is waning (though not going down without a fight, I admit). The Church’s presence in daily life is nearly non-existent. Most Italians are still baptized etc. and would claim to be Catholic if you asked, but only about 10% (I’m guessing) are practicing Catholics.
There are still devout Catholics of course, but even they are puzzled by the attitudes of their non-practicing compatriots. One of my colleagues who is very active in his diocese told me: “These people show up wanting to marry in the church or baptize their kids. We’ve never seen them before and it means nothing to them, so we have to wonder why they bother.” If forced to think about it, these people might answer that it’s traditional, and/or that they want to please an older relative.
Italy still maintains many of the outward forms of Catholicism, but even those are being challenged, as in the above-mentioned cases of the classroom crucifixes and nativity play. Like most modern nations, Italy is wrestling with large-scale immigration and how to integrate new people, religions, and cultures into the existing culture and society. These are not easy issues, and the best answers differ even from community to community within a country. Some parts of Italy have found effective and interesting ways to bring their newly-multicultural communities together, others are still working on it. In most cases, the result will not look like the Italy that many Americans think they know.
Lake Como is shaped like an inverted Y, and Lecco sits on its southeastern tip, where it debouches into the river Adda. This end of the lake is deep and narrow, hemmed in by high cliffs (a bit like a Norwegian fjord), so any wind from the north is funneled through a narrow passage before it comes screaming down on Lecco.
I woke up at 5:30 this morning to a high wind banging our shutters; I eventually had to get up and close them all.
Now the sun is finally rising, casting pink light on the freshly-snowcapped mountain that I can see from my studio, and there are fast-moving whitecaps on the lake.
This house is hazardous to my productivity. Instead of working, I gaze out the window, fascinated by the endlessly-changing panorama of light on the mountains. Few offices in the world can boast such a view. It may not be good for my output, but it’s definitely good for my soul.
